


The Art of Picking Up the Pieces

by warsfeil



Category: Aldnoah.Zero (Anime)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-31
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-20 14:48:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3654372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warsfeil/pseuds/warsfeil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>100% written to make myself feel better after the end of the anime. The resolution we never got. Not exactly a happy ending.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>He looks up and he stops breathing. She's there and her hair is done up and she's wearing a dress and she looks perfect and Slaine thinks that he should close his eyes because looking at her light is going to burn him, blind him, if he does it for too long.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Art of Picking Up the Pieces

It takes months. Slaine isn't sure how many -- he stopped asking for the date when he realized it didn't matter. Instead, he watches the days bleed into night, never quite reaching that tomorrow in the distance. In the beginning, someone would tell him the date, tell him how long he'd been imprisoned, tell him something meant to rub salt in a wound that would never close anyway. These days, all those people are gone, traded off to a different job and replaced by people that Inaho handpicked.

Slaine thinks it's been around a year. He measures his life in haircuts, in how much growth he gets until Inaho is the one to finally comment on it, to get a pair of scissors that Slaine would never be allowed himself (there's still too much risk there, after all), to cut it off until white strands litter the floor of the visiting room.

So -- six haircuts, more or less. That's when it finally happens, when Inaho's hands are running through Slaine's hair and Slaine can feel the focus in them, the sharp noise of the scissors.

"She's getting married tomorrow," Inaho says, and his voice has no inflection in it.

Slaine's hands curl into fists on his pants, tight enough that he can feel his fingernails digging into his palms, and then he releases them. He shouldn't move too much. It'll make the haircut harder.

He doesn't say anything, because there's nothing to say. She is, by every measurement Slaine can think of, more or less happy. She is still burdened by the system, she is still working hard, she is still, Slaine thinks, naive in so many matters, but it was that which won. In the end, maybe all the players that wanted a war so badly are already gone, and only those tired of fighting are the ones left behind. 

Inaho's hands work steady, sheering off hair bit by bit. Slaine doesn't think it matters how even his hair is, but Inaho isn't one to do things by halves. That much, he's learned. 

When Inaho finally steps away, Slaine looks at the hair for a long moment before looking back at Inaho. 

"Thank you," he offers, a phrase that becomes easier to say the more he says it -- a phrase that's only half a lie, and getting less with every day.

Inaho does not smile, but he nods.

\--

Slaine isn't expecting another visit. He doesn't know how often Inaho visits -- tries hard not to measure time (though he thinks he's grown an inch since all this started; it's a small victory and he wishes it meant more, because Inaho's grown _two_ ), but he's certain it was just yesterday that Inaho was here, and now the familiar, heavy weight of shackles is wrapped around his wrists again. The woman that's been here for the past few haircuts -- he doesn't remember her name, but she's always careful not to put them on too tight. If he wanted to, he could slip out of them, but he thinks she knows that. He also thinks she knows he won't. She doesn't take them off, though, when they get to the visiting room. He doesn't know what to make of that, so he files it away for later and doesn't try.

He sits down and there's no chess set there, there's no new books, there's nothing to indicate that Inaho would be coming. He looks at his reflection in the surface of the table for a long moment, studying himself. Longer hair than he kept before; eyes that have bags that could be worse. He hasn't lost much weight, anymore, but he knows his muscles have atrophied from disuse. Not that he was ever fit to begin with, he supposes.

"Slaine?"

He looks up and he stops breathing. She's there and her hair is done up and she's wearing a dress and she looks perfect and Slaine thinks that he should close his eyes because looking at her light is going to burn him, blind him, if he does it for too long.

"Princess," he manages, and his voice doesn't sound like his. 

She steps over to him; kneels down next to his chair instead of across the table and looks at him with too much tenderness. It's so much more than he deserves.

"Slaine," she says, and just hearing her say his name is enough to make his world narrow down to just her. He thought he'd never see her again; he thought he didn't deserve to, and here she is, right in front of him, right--

"Don't cry," she says.

"You're crying, too," he points out, and perhaps it's not his most diplomatic moment, but she laughs through her tears, reaches her hands up and places each one on one of his cheeks, leans forward and presses their foreheads together.

They stay like that for a long moment, until Asseylum takes in a shuddering breath and looks at him again. Slaine never wanted to see tears in her eyes, never again, but they're there when she makes eye contact, and he can't help but lurch forward for a second. The chain between his hand clatters, and he drops them again.

"I never wanted to blame you," Asseylum says, and her voice is soft and afraid and choked with the thickness of tears. "I'm so sorry, Slaine. I'm so sorry."

This time he does move, he does make contact. He knows the guards will be stiffening, knows they're on edge because their criminal is touching someone so important, so pure -- he thinks touching her might mar the surface, thinks the blackness inside of him might corrode her, but her light is so strong he just wants to feel it for a moment. He goes for her cheek and stops, letting his hand fall onto her shoulder, a less intimate touch. 

"It was my fault, Princess." His voice is steadier than he thought it would be, steadier than if he'd planned it, completely at odds with the tracks of heat he can feel down his cheeks. "There's nothing you have to apologize for, or feel guilty about."

She shakes her head, then, holding onto his hand with both of hers. "I couldn't save you."

That's absurd, Slaine thinks. He's saved, he's alive; he can't hurt anyone, in here, doesn't think he'd have the strength to try even if all the walls around him fell down. She saved the world, she saved everything, and he couldn't manage to save anything -- not even her, really, not when he first thought she was dead, not when she was shot, not when he was what she needed saving from. He certainly can't save her from a political marriage, now, so-- 

"I wanted you to be free," she continues. "Free from the chains of misery. You've always been so sad, Slaine."

He shifts his grip and squeezes her hand. "You saved me," he says, the certainty of that truth making his voice stronger than he meant. "Because of you, I was saved."

She looks at him with her eyes wide, tears making the blue even brighter, and then tries for a smile. It's the saddest one he's seen on her in a long time.

"Congratulations," he offers, much quieter. "On your wedding."

She throws her arms around him, then, launches up and clings to him like that might truly save them both, and for a split second, Slaine thinks that it does.

"We both did what we thought was right," she whispers, just loud enough for him to hear, warm breath on his ear even as her body shakes slightly with the sobs he knows she's trying to hold back for his sake.

It might be easier for her, to hate him, but he tried that-- he tried that, and she didn't. She wouldn't. He's not sure if she's even capable of hate, and he doesn't want to see her start. It might be easier for both of them, if she did, but he doesn't deserve easy, and she doesn't want it. 

She finally pulls back, slowly moving away from him until there's an inch, then two, then the appropriate distance between them, for a Versian princess and an exiled criminal whose existence is a secret. She reaches down, plucks the sides of her dress up into her hands and bows to him, deep enough that he feels like he should stop her.

"Slaine Troyard," she says, raising back up and looking at him, every bit the proper princess that she should be, except for the drying wet tracks down her cheeks. "I will try to visit more often."

He shakes his head, just a little, even though he wants nothing more than to see her more regularly. "Please, princess Asseylum," he says, fingers flexing to reach out for her against the fabric of his pants. "Just be happy for me."

She offers him a smile that he's fairly sure hurts them both, and then she's gone.

\--

"If you asked the Warden," Inaho says, a hint of chastisement in his voice, "you would be allowed to have your hair cut." 

Slaine doesn't reply to that, keeps staring at the reinforced glass across the way. After this long, he takes some degree of comfort in Inaho showing up to always cut Slaine's hair a bit too long, to make an attempt to play a game of chess that Slaine is never interested in, to leave behind books on Rayleigh scattering that make Slaine want to throw them against the wall. 

"How was the wedding?" Slaine asks, instead, even though he isn't sure he wants to know.

Inaho's hands don't falter. "It went well," he replies. "They took a two week honeymoon to volunteer to help restore New Orleans, and now they're back to continue working." 

Slaine jerks with the urge to laugh, because taking a honeymoon to _volunteer_ sounds just like her. He doesn't know if Klancain really understands what he's gotten himself into. 

"Hold still," Inaho says, automatically, but the words aren't even a command. 

"Princess Lemrina was in attendance," Inaho continues, as though he was giving Slaine a rundown on the weather he was missing while in prison.

Slaine turns, then, jerks his half-cut hair out of Inaho's hand and looks into his eye, searching for something he can't even describe. "Is she," he starts. Breaks off, then restarts, plunging ahead. "Is she all right?"

"She is grieving your death, but the medical community is working to see if Aldnoah can be utilized in more ways than previously thought," Inaho says, reaching up and turning Slaine's head back to face forward. It's a gentle, firm gesture, and Slaine follows it obediently, letting his eyes drop. "I expect she'll be able to walk, within five years." 

"She'll like that," Slaine murmurs, quietly, because he knows it's only half of her wish.

"She won't go visit your grave until she can walk on her own legs, she said," Inaho says, and that's how Slaine knows she'll be okay. Lemrina was always strongest when she was angry about something, and he was certain she was furious at his memory. 

It's the first time they've spoken much, about the people that Slaine has left behind, about the people that don't realize he's alive, about the handful that know the truth about what he did. Slaine isn't certain that he likes it, but there isn't any point in holding anything back from Inaho, these days.

Inaho's hands comb through the fine strands of Slaine's hair, parting it until he's satisfied with how it looks. "There." He sets the scissors down, moves around the table and pauses for a second, ready to leave. 

"Kaizuka," Slaine says, looking back up at him, the name foreign to his tongue, as foreign as the idea of making a request. "Next time you come. Could you bring some material on Aldnoah and paraplegia?"

Inaho considers the request, filing it away like he's more of a robot than the eye he had removed. "Yes," he agrees, after a moment.

Slaine smiles and says, "Thank you." 

Later, alone in his cell, he places a hand on his necklace and thinks about what could have been, if he'd realized everything so much sooner.

**Author's Note:**

> did that make anything better? i have no idea, but all these characters deserved better than they got, and i had to write something or i knew i would just keep suffering. as we are all suffering. there's so many shipping hints in there, i'm sorry, i'm a multishipper, what can i say. also: i did not beta read this, because i can only sustain so much pain. i hope you understand.


End file.
